NTC: Regulator to change sector’s face

The Senate has passed the National Transport Commission (NTC) Bill. ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE examines the bill’s journey of the bill, which is expected to change the face of transportation.

Ten years after the idea of the National Transport Commission (NTC) bill was mooted, the Senate has passed it into law. Its passage may pave the way for organic changes to the regulatory framework of a sector critical to the nation’s economic development.

Although it was first sponsored in 2008, the bill, whose current version was sponsored by Senator Andy Uba and read for the second time on October 7, 2015, made it through after a clause-by-clause consideration.

Though the bill is still awaiting President Muhammadu Buhari’s accent, there is no doubt of its being signed, as it is meant to revolutionise a sector, which needs new operational paradigm.

Senate Committee Chairman on Land Transportation, Senator Gbenga Ashafa said the bill would, no doubt, “revolutionise and bring the needed sanity and fresh air to the sector”.

According to him, the Commission will not only regulate transport inter-modality, it will also lift the sector’s contribution to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which for a decade has stagnated at less than four per cent yearly.

He said: “With this bill, we would successfully create a multi-modal transport sector economy and a safety oversight regulator for the entire sector. This is very good for business as it brings standard and structure to the transport sector while also increasing the revenue of government.”

Ashafa’s enthusiasm is not misplaced, having worked assiduously with other members of the committee and stake holders to berth the best possible version of the bill into law.

“The National Transport Commission when signed into law is capable of setting the transport sector on the path of positive development,” he said, adding: “the Joint Senate Committee on Land Transport, Marine Transport and Aviation Transport worked with the understanding that this is one of the priority economic bills of the eighth Senate and therefore, ensured that all inputs from stakeholders were considered and the best possible version of the bill was presented to the Senate.”

The question on the lips of stakeholders, especially transportation experts is why it took Nigeria 58 years to realise the desirability of the commission. They opined that the nation had for so long been shortchanged by successive administration that had failed to establish the commission and help sanitise a sector that is extremely critical to the nation’s economic development.

Last year, Minister of Power, Works and Housing Mr Babatunde Fashola questioned the rationale behind the delay. “The question was not whether the commission is desirable, but why it has taken so long in coming,”he said.

Across the three modes land -(motorised and rail), water and air, the absence of a commission to serve as the regulator and policy formulator had turned transportation into an all comers’ game, with the Federal and state government abandoning the space for unorganised private operators to dominate and set the rule.

Under the new bill, the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) has been proposed to be upgraded in status to the NTC, to extend its regulatory roles to all other sectors of transportation system.

This will undoubtedly synch with the position of the Minister of Transportation Mr Rotimi Amaechi, who at the public sitting three years ago, canvassed such position for the NSC.

According to Amaechi, the Ministry had resolved that the bill so recognise the NSC to put paid to dupplicating responsibilities, which may arise if another regulatory agency is created.

Though the Ministry’s position had initially been opposed by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), which sought the creation of another body to avoid the blurring of technical/operational responsibilities once the NSC is upgraded and its roles merged or enlarged, it seemed the ministry had had its way, but should it?

NSC’s function

Besides being established to promote the interest of shippers, and the establishment of shippers associations across the country, the Shippers Council law authorises in Section 3 that it should advise the government of the federation, through the Minister on matters relating to “the structure of freight rate, availability and adequacy of shipping space, frequency of sailings, terms of shipment, class and quality of vessels, port charges and facilities and other related matters, negotiate and enter into agreements with Conference Lines and non-Conference Lines, ship-owners, the Nigerian Ports Authority and any other bodies on matters affecting the interests of shippers; consider the problems faced by shippers with regards to coastal transport, inland waterways transport and matters relating generally to the transportation of goods by water and advise government on possible solutions and to provide a forum for the protection of the interest of shippers on matters affecting the shipment of imports and exports to and from Nigeria”, among others.

Shedding more light, Founder Safety Without Borders (SWB) Patrick Adenusi said being a body set up to protect the interest of Nigeria, especially at a time when the nation has no national carrier, the NSC is not in the best position to advance the cause of transportation sector and become a regulator of the industry.

“I don’t think merging NSC or adapting it to the status of the NTC is best for the industry,” he said. Questioning the rationale for the establishment of any other agency, Adenusi said in an era of recession when government expenses is increasing, establishing another agency would only serve to bloat government’s expenditure.

“What we would end up having is to have some Nigerians that would not be productive but collect salaries and increasing government’s burden.”

Rather than setting up another agency, Adenusi canvassed that the Ministry should play its role as the policy formulator and implementor.

There’s nothing the NTC wanted to do that the Ministry couldn’t achieve. “If the Federal Government gets away with the NTC, what that means is that similar agency must be created by the states. In a situation where many states are owing upwards of a year salary, how many can sustain another agency?”

Bureaucracy

Another transportation expert, Dr Tajudeen Bawa’ Allah, said the government must be careful and “not allow bureaucracy to kill its good intention for the industry”.

Bawa’Allah, who was the first Dean, School of Transportation Studies, Lagos State University (LASU), said, while the dichotomy being sought by the government, which seeks to separate the executing body, which is the policy formulating body is welcome, efforts must be made to ensure that bureaucracy does not kill the dream.

The don, who faulted the merging or upgrading of the NSC to NTC, said the mandate or functions of the former, is at variance with the proposed duties and functions of a regulator which is the latter.

Rather than “engaging in a cut and paste, which adapting the NSC would amount to, one would advise that the government revisit the report of the National Transportation Coordinating Committee (NTCC), headed by Prof Adeniyi, and draw from it,” Bawa’Allah said, adding, “We are not short of ideas, we are just short of putting all these ideas to productive use. If we don’t, the same bureaucracy that killed the National Sports Commission would kill the National Transportation Commission”.

Bawa’Allah, who served on the board of the NTCC, said rather than rushing into creating the Commission, the government needs to come up with a policy framework to guide the agency in its operation. “There is nothing on ground for the NTC to work on. Let’s start by drawing up a national policy on transportation. The transportation industry has no policy and that is the foundation. I would urge the government to revisit the NTCC report and several of such reports since 1960.”

Another expert, who preferred not to be mentioned, said transportation policy is the foundation upon which any implementation on the sector would rest.

“It is the policy that would draw up the functions of the Federal Ministry of Transportation and those of the 36 states and Abuja, as well as that of other inter-ministerial boards, departments or agencies within the entire gamut of the transportation industry as well as other contiguous ministry like the Ministry of Works among others.”

Now that the bill has been passed, Bawa’Allah, however, said NTC should be allowed to live. He said the NTC would pave the way for the deregulation of the transportation sector. “The bill when passed would be a plus to the government,” he said.

‘Game changer’

Contrary to scepticism that NTC could just be a drain pipe, a train logistics expert Edeme Kelikume said a transport commission may eventually emerge as a game changer and major “value-adding agency of the government. “If the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) could become a major net contributor to the GDP, revolutionising the Global Satellite Communication (GSM) licences and democratising telephone services by making communication accessible to all Nigerians, one could see the NTC achieving same for the transportation sector,” he added.

Kelikume is already looking forward to the time when the NTC would unlock the sector, deregulate its operations and draw fresh funds into government’s coffers. That time, he says, may just be months away.